


I like that you're broken, broken like me

by Capbuckyang



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Pre-Heist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 14:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15317037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capbuckyang/pseuds/Capbuckyang
Summary: It would be just like Debbie to apologize and show her love through a lengthy planned heist worth one hundred fifty million dollars in diamonds.





	I like that you're broken, broken like me

 

* * *

 

 

It’s past midnight when Lou hears the crash across the hall.

Her first thought is that someone’s broken in, but she lets that one go just as quickly as it comes since the security systems she’s placed would alert the police department faster than anyone trying to get in through the first gate.

That only leaves Debbie as option two.

It’s the first time in a long while where she’d had anyone else in this house with her. She normally didn’t like bringing one night stands here, although those were far and few in between, to not risk questioning gazes over her mansion like home.

But it’s just Debbie, which might be a harder concept to wrap her head around.

It’s been three days since she’s been back in Lou’s life and everything’s been spinning out of her control already. In a way, it’s a good thing too; Lou would never admit to it, but she was getting bored without Debbie stirring shit up for the both of them.

She grabs her robe and walks down the hallway, turning on the lights before making a stop at Debbie’s door. Maybe Lou’s being paranoid, it was just a crash and she probably dropped a hairbrush or something, but Debbie’s been so quiet since she’s been back.

Debbie's a chatter box at night, from all the years Lou’s spent with her. It wouldn’t even matter if she had to be up at seven in the morning, she’d talk Lou’s ear off about her plans, or memories of Danny, or her next trip she was planning on taking with Lou. Which is why things became weird that year before the entire prison thing happened, where Debbie wasn’t rambling at her at one am while Lou was trying to sleep. It became even more obvious when she was actually in the slammer for so long and Lou didn’t have that constant, familiar presence of Debbie and her words to fall asleep too.

Lou knocks on the door twice, just in case. It has been five years, Lou respects personal boundaries more than anything and she doesn’t know if there's etiquette required here.

When Debbie doesn’t open, worry grips Lou and she pushes the door open to see if everything is okay. She does not expect to find Debbie on the floor on her hands and knees, clearly searching for something, looking frantic between mounds of her clothing and stuff spread all over her bed and carpet.

“Debbie?” Lou asks, trying to get her attention.

Debbie looks up apologetically at Lou and sits back on her heels, hands in her lap, making her look like an adorable puppy. It’s stupidly endearing.

She’s wearing the pajamas they found in a discount Disney store years ago, and the Dumbo eyes on her t-shirt almost match the long sad eyes she's giving Lou right now.

“Looks like a hurricane flew in through here,” Lou says and sees a flicker of a smile on Debbie’s face.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Debbie says and offers no more about the mess her room has become or the devastating sadness on her face.

“What’s wrong, jailbird?” Lou asks and leans back against the wall to wait her out.

She looks different now, older maybe, but then again Lou probably looks different too. 

She’s still her Debbie, though. She’s been through hell, hair hair is much longer, still has a knack for shiny things, loves her family more than anything, never lost her dry sense of humor, loves any and all food, and somehow, through the ups and downs and exhaustion of prison, looks more beautiful than she ever has before.

Lou’s always been a sucker for Debbie Ocean, since the first day the met really, but give her Debbie with a few scars and broken parts, but still somehow smiling and walking purposefully through life, and she was a goner again in no time.

“I lost Danny’s necklace,” Debbie says and Lou knows she’s strong, the strongest person Lou knows besides herself, but right about now she looks a millisecond away from breaking.

Not that Lou would judge her. She’s been waiting for it, actually, wants Debbie to lay it all down on the table, not just the five years in prison part, but before that too, when things went to a bad place for them. But she knows Debbie; she has to bring it up herself and come to a place where she’s ready to talk about it all.

Lou looks around the room that Debbie's somehow managed to turn up side down. There's coats, scarves, shoes, books, lotions, vases, candles, and fancy dresses littering the floor and the back of the two chairs in the room. 

Debbie has a lot of stuff.

After Lou borrowed whatever she wanted to keep for herself, she asked the movers to stuff everything in the room upstairs across from her owns. She kept the important stuff though. She found a place for those in Debbie’s room herself.

Lou navigates her way across the mess of clothes and shoes on the floor and reaches up to the top of the closet.

“Lou?” Debbie asks from the floor and Lou smiles when she feels the silver box in the very corner under the piles of purses and sweaters.

“Could have asked me before wrecking your room,” Lou says as she comes back towards Debbie. She considers getting down on the floor with Debbie since she makes no move to get up and just looks up at Lou with this shiny hope in her eyes that Lou has hated disappointing since she met her.

Lou reaches out and traces her eyebrow, down her temple, to her cheek, rubbing her thumb over Debbie’s chin.

It doesn’t feel real, having Debbie back home with her, and Lou’s always been better with touch anyway.

She can’t really get herself to stop, either. She’s always been more of a person who communicates through touch, shows her affection in that way better than words. She couldn’t help but wrap Debbie up in her arms and kiss her head when she sat down in her car at the cemetery. She kept touching the small of Debbie’s back while leading her into the house, pressed their thighs together while sitting on the couch, made sure they were at least touching hands while sitting across a table together.

Debbie never recoils from her touch, leans in and smiles like she knows Lou's acting just as touch starved as she feels but can't express, yet. 

Being apart for that long really took a toll on the both of them.

Lou saw her once a year, on the day of Danny’s death, because those were the hardest for Debbie, but it felt wrong seeing Debbie in orange behind a glass wall. She sent her a silly birthday card with an endless amount of chocolate every year, threw in few essentials she knew Debbie was missing like the apricot face wash she loves, and fuzzy socks. She managed to slip a phone in for texting around the second birthday delivery, so they did talk when time and restrictions permitted, but it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t the same.

Debbie’s skin feels soft and warm underneath Lou’s fingertips and before she can get lost in it, she hands the silver box to Debbie and watches her open it quickly with shaky fingers.

Debbie lets out a soft, relieved noise and brings the necklace up to her lips and rests her head against Lou’s knee. Lou brings a hand down to her head and gently runs her fingers through, seeing the tension leave Debbie’s body as she slumps against her.

“When’s the last time you slept, baby?” Lou asks, slipping into using endearments as easy as breathing, and feels Debbie’s shoulders slump further at being caught in a lie she hasn’t even told yet.

“It feels too different,” Debbie says, rather than denying it, and Lou continues stroking her hair.

“It’s stupid, I should just pass out from how tired I feel, and this mattress is probably like a luxury sleep mattress knowing you, but I just can’t...” Debbie trails off with a rueful laugh and Lou smiles, tugs her head back lightly until Debbie’s looking up at her again.

It’s weird to see her in this position after so long. They’ve been here before of course, but never with this much distance between them, and Lou hates that she can’t even stay angry at Debbie for more than a few hours before she forgives her and wants her pressed against her again.

They never talked about the fight before Claude Becker happened.

It only got worse when he came into the picture, and as soon as Lou found at that she had been right, and the idiot had thrown her best friend into jail, all hell broke loose.

Lou thought she might be angry for the rest of her life. She was furious, heartbroken, devastated. She had plans upon plans on ruining his very existence and a million more plans to get Debbie out as fast as she could. All of that washed away and she was left only with miserably sad ache in her heart when Debbie called her from prison and told her to move on without her.

As if Lou could suddenly pick up a part of her heart lost in the ocean somewhere and start a new life. Lou made sure she did exactly the opposite of that and she hasn’t regretted it for one second. And now Debbie’s back here with her, already working on a heist of a lifetime.

“Manufactured in France,” Lou says and Debbie laughs softly, exhaustion so evident in her posture and face.

The dark circles under her eyes wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else, but Lou knows her face better than anyone else’s, no matter how long it’s been.

“Come to bed with me,” Lou says and Debbie closes her eyes, lets Lou cup her cheek gently.

The only way to get past something is to work through it, and Lou won’t lie, she’s been longing for Debbie’s body sleeping next to hers for far too long.

Debbie nods and stands up, frowns at the mess on her floor, and follows Lou across the hall into her bedroom. Lou drops her robe and checks the alarm on her phone again. She’s got a meeting with two hackers tomorrow morning, but she wants to have enough time to make Debbie breakfast since she’s been eating food like it will start disappearing at some point if she doesn’t eat fast enough.

“I’m sorry,” Debbie says, standing by the edge of the bed while Lou slides in and pulls the comforter off for her.

“What for?” Lou asks. Debbie gets in next to her and tucks her knees up to her chest.

“For wrecking the room you set up for me,” Debbie says and Lou scoffs, shakes her head in amusement.

“Deb, come on, we can fix it.”

“I’m also sorry for acting like a jealous bitch when you started seeing that red head,” Debbie says out of nowhere and Lou has to do a double take to make sure that she hasn’t been possessed or something. It’s like flashing back to six years ago, when Debbie’s bangs covered her eyes when she didn’t pin her hair back and Lou had blue tips in her own hair, an impulsive decision after one too many drinks.

Lou isn’t ready to delve into their past right now, but Debbie’s fierce gaze says otherwise.

Lou wasn't the only one acting out during that time, but she certainly didn't react well to Debbie mentioning her sudden new interest in some hot shot named Becker. Sure they were going through a rough patch, it didn't mean they had to break the very foundation of their relationship. 

“You don’t have to defend me, Lou, I know I started this weird thing between us before you even said anything,” Debbie says before Lou can get a chance to wrap her mind around everything.

“I wasn’t making it any better,” Lou confesses.

Discussing the shit they hadn’t thought of resolving in years straight on was so out of character, Lou felt baffled, but bringing it up in the middle of the night and being so honest was definitely her Debbie.

“I’m sorry too, then, for fucking it all up even more,” Lou says and Debbie laughs, leans back against the wall of the bed.

“You tried to warn me,” Debbie says. She won’t look at Lou anymore, so it means she’s more ashamed and guilty than angry anymore and Lou doesn’t want her to ever feel that way between them.

“He was an asshole, even I couldn’t have predicted the shit he pulled,” Lou says and Debbie looks up sharply, her eyebrows drawn together.

“Why’d you stay?”

Lou looks away this time, unsure of how much her face will give away. She’s always been the more transparent one between them. It’s odd that she’s a con expert since she can barely conceal how much she would give up for Debbie, or anyone she loves too deeply.

“Leaving wasn’t an option,” Lou says decisively, hoping that makes the very obvious leaving _you_ wasn’t an option out of her words.

Debbie reaches down and hesitantly touches the back of Lou’s hand with her fingers, tracing over the ring she never takes off. It’s the only thing she has left from her childhood, a tiny silver band with the words _free_ curving in pretty cursive. It embodies who she is as a person, in many ways.

Free spirited, looking for adventure, open to everything life will throw at her. Nothing really tied her down until she met Debbie in the back of a Hotel and Casino, slipping money out of the guys around her like water falling from a stream straight into her tight jean pockets and bra.

They teamed up that night, not knowing anything about the other, but somehow still trusting each other implicitly. The rest fell in place in a slow spades, until Lou woke up one morning and saw Debbie walking into their apartment with a bag full of stolen fancy groceries for Lou to make them a fancy breakfast and realized, this is it, this is my _family,_ she’s my _life_.

Lou turns her hand over and lets Debbie interlace their fingers. It feels nice, it feels dangerous.

Maybe she went wrong in thinking she became Debbie’s everything, too.

“I’m glad you stayed,” Debbie says and Lou smiles softly, wanting to pull her close and hold on like she’s been wanting to for years now. Debbie raises their hands and presses her lips the the back of Lou’s hand, leaves a soft kiss there and on her ring finger, over the silver band.

“You’ll have a diamond on here soon enough,” Debbie says, probably completely unaware of how it sounds to Lou, but Debbie looks genuine right now, shadowed by the darkness, the tiny side table lamp illuminating her face.

It would be just like Debbie to apologize and show her love through a lengthy planned heist worth one hundred fifty million dollars in diamonds. Even if Debbie is saying what Lou thinks she’s saying, she’s not ready to lay it all on the table, years of pining and anger and love and devotion, a mixed ache in her gut she needs time to think through.

“You haven’t slept in three days, how are you not about to pass out?” Lou asks and Debbie laughs, finally scooting in to get under the covers. Lou closes the distance between them and lets Debbie wrap her arms around her and pull her closer.

“I’m definitely gonna pass out,” Debbie says once she pressed from shoulder to toes against Lou.

“No kidding, jailbird,” Lou says and kisses the top of Debbie’s head.

They’re definitely far from fixing everything between them, but there’s been more progress than Lou had even hoped for and having Debbie falling asleep in her bed while cuddling her is more than enough right now.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://dickgraysoni.tumblr.com) (rating may change if more is added to this.)


End file.
